Kmflett's Blog

E P Thompson wrote the Making of the English Working Class over some years, while working as a Leeds University Adult Tutor in Yorkshire, researching in archives and helping to build the post-1956 new left.

How all this began to come together can be seen in this extract below. The ULR joined with the New Reasoner and became the New Left Review in 1960

E P Thompson, Universities & Left Review 6, 1959

First,  working-class  history is   not   the   record   of   a   coherent   “way   of  life”;   it   has always    been   a    way    of   struggle,    between   competing moralities.     At   any   given   point   a   whole   complex   of objective   and   active,   subjective   factors   determine  which morality   is   dominant.    The   objective   factors   are   most obvious:   in  times  of  relative  prosperity  and  social  flexibility,   when   it  is   possible   for   individuals   or  groups   to “better  themselves,”  the  acquisitive  ethic  and  the  status-striving  assert  themselves.    Conversely,  in  times  of  hard-ship,   when   it  is   most   clear  that  the  working  class   (or groups  within  it)  can  only  defend  themselves  or  advance by  collective  action,  the  communal  ethic  flowers and   active,   subjective   factors   determine  which morality   is   dominant. This   way   of   struggle,   against   class   rule   above,   and between   competing  moralities   within   the  working   class, has  never  been  a   blind,   spontaneous   reflex  to   objective economic  conditions.    It   has   been   a  conscious   struggle of  ideas  and  values  all  the  way.    It  has  been  possible  for working-class  organisations  to  hold  fast  to  the  vision  of collective  good,   in  the  face   of  the  acquisitive   surge  in times  of  prosperity.    It  has  been  possible  for  treacherous leadership  (as  at  the  time  of  the  General  Strike)  to  shatter that  vision  for  a  decade.   And,  the  more  closely  we  study it,  the  more  we  are  forced  to  a  recognition  of  the  role of  the  politically  active  minority.   In  times  of  brutalisation and   degradation,    working   people   have   asserted    their humanity  only  by  revolt  against  these  conditions;  and  the most  conscious,  morally-engaged  form  of  revolt  has  been in   political   organisation.    For    150   years   the   political minority  has   been   the  carrier  of  the   aspirations  of  the majority;  it  has  been  the  point  at  which  the  diffuse  ideal of   community   has   come   to   effective   expression.